Great Art. The Question and the Story

 All great art, in any medium whether writing, painting, acting in plays or movies or tv shows, music, etc, any art form, either poses a question or tells a story. The greatest art does both.

When I was younger I was into art forms that were dark, whether humor or pathos etc, because those art forms agreed with the stories that I told myself about myself. Very dark stuff.

So I also postulate that we can only appreciate art that agrees with our own internal story.

In reading I remember reading stories that while placed in other times and places always were talking about our world. And they told a story based on what the author thought of our world and posed questions about how we got there or how we could go somewhere else.

In music I listened to things like Black Sabbath, who are not Devil Worshippers or any of that stupid crap, and other very heavy groups that were telling stories and asking questions about the darkness in the world. And, oddly enough, I must have felt some hope in all that, as I also LOVED groups with a much more positive outlook like Supertramp.

So I have always been a contradiction.

Now, much later in life, I find most of the dark stories and questions have gone. My internal story seems to have changed. Which I believe is a good thing. Darkness is NOT a good place to live your, or my, life.

And lately I find myself drawn to songs of people asking very profound questions and telling deep stories that lead to a possibility of Goodness.

One song that really is getting me lately is a story of a person who had a friend that, as far as I can tell, committed suicide, and this really hit this individual hard. Until many years later they wrote a song that expressed their loss and also their journey to healing. It is a story of triumph over loss that poses the question of how to move on and then shows the way that they did it.

And I have come home again to another artist whom I think of as the last Troubadour. This artist tells stories in each of the songs that show the power of the human spirit to overcome and be made stronger by what they had to triumph over.

And finally I have been listening to a song that tells three stories about how we have become obsessed with the getting of money and goods, and conquering others, and after every story asks the question "Where is the Love?".

And I find that question to be very relevant to both my personal internal dialogue and the world around me.

In my personal dialogue I find that I am still able to be angry much more than I want to be. Not anywhere near where I have been for which I am very grateful, yet for me any is too much. For I know that when acting in anger, which is disguised fear, I make really dumb choices. However, I am grateful that my choices in art, of any form, no longer reinforce this. The stories and questions that I participate in are questions and stories that promote Peace and Love with Compassion and maybe a little bit of Wisdom.

For the world around me I find that we are all scared, living in fear, of each other mostly. We are divided into camps and then told to blame, and be afraid of, the other. And very few of us are able to break out of that place. I know that I still struggle to not be in that place myself at times still. I believe that I will be struggling to not act from that place for life.

So we need more art of Peace, Love, Compassion, Understanding, with strong doses of Humility. Especially in the mediums of Music, Movies, Television, and Books. Those are the ones that impact most heavily on the world in the fastest time.

For I know, Fear is the Mind Killer. Fear kills all ability to discern truth from fiction. Fear kills the ability to Love and Understand. Fear is truly the path to the Dark Side and produces Suffering.

We must Love each other or Die.

We must Love each other. It is the only Rational Act.